Associations of the Inflammatory Marker YKL-40 with Measures of Obesity and Dyslipidaemia in Individuals at High Risk of Type 2 Diabetes

作者：Thomsen Stine B^*; Gjesing Anette P; Rathcke Camilla N; Ekstrom Claus T; Eiberg Hans; Hansen Torben; Pedersen Oluf; Vestergaard Henrik

来源：PLos One, 2015, 10(7): e0133672.

DOI：10.1371/journal.pone.0133672

Introduction
Circulating levels of the inflammatory marker YKL-40 are elevated in cardiovascular disease and obesity-related type 2 diabetes (T2D), and serum YKL-40 levels are related to elements of dyslipidaemia.
Objective
We aimed to investigate the associations between serum YKL-40 and obesity-related traits in a Danish sample of non-diabetic relatives to T2D patients and, furthermore, to estimate the heritability of YKL-40.
Research Design and Methods
324 non-diabetic individuals with family relation to a T2D patient were included in the study. The participants underwent oral-and intravenous glucose tolerance tests for estimation of glucose tolerance and surrogate measures of insulin sensitivity. Anthropometric measures were retrieved and biochemical measures of the plasma lipid profile and serum YKL-40 levels were obtained. Association-analyses between serum YKL-40 and obesity-related traits and estimates of the narrow sense heritability of YKL-40 were based on a polygenic variance component model.
Results
Fasting serum levels of YKL-40 were positively associated with waist-hip-ratio (p<0.001) and fasting plasma triglyceride levels (p<0.001). None of the insulin sensitivity indexes were significantly associated with YKL-40. According to the AE model, the familiality-estimate h(2) of YKL-40 was 0.45 (SE 0.13). When the ACE-model was applied, the heritability-estimate h(2) of YKL-40 did not reach statistical significance.
Conclusions
Our results suggest a role of serum YKL-40 in obesity-related low grade inflammation, but do not indicate that YKL-40 is directly involved in the development of T2D.

• 出版日期2015-7-21